Melbourne church sadness for AIDS expert deaths

Services to honour those lost on Flight MH17 will begin in Victoria on Sunday with two memorials.

Flowers have been left by at a large sign on the Princes bridge in Melbourne for delegates who have been killed on flight MH17 who were traveling to the Aids 2014 conference. Saturday, July 19. 2014. (AAP)

Flowers have been left by at a large sign on the Princes bridge in Melbourne for delegates who have been killed on flight MH17 who were traveling to the Aids 2014 conference. Saturday, July 19. 2014. (AAP)

Two MH17 memorial services will be held in Victoria on Sunday, one honouring those en route to a global AIDS conference, the other a young family coming home from holidays.

The former, a gathering of international Catholic HIV and AIDS experts, will remember researchers and health workers who were coming to Melbourne for the 20th International AIDS conference.

The latter, will be held in the suburb of Eynesbury, west of Melbourne, where community members will mourn a family of five.

Hans van den Hende, his wife, Shaliza Dewa, and their children Piers, Marnix and Margaux were on their way home from a European holiday on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17.

Six AIDS experts are now confirmed to have been lost in the crash which killed 298 people, including 36 Australian residents.

Monsignor Robert Vitillo, one of the conveners of a Catholic conference running prior to the international event, said religious belief helped people come to terms with their grief.

"This tragic event has touched us all deeply," he said.

"A number of people who died had committed their lives to improving the health of others as part of the global fight against HIV and AIDS."

Prominent members of the AIDS research community now confirmed as being on board flight MH17 include former IAS president Joep Lange and his partner Jacqueline van Tongeren.

Also lost was Pim de Kuijer, from the organisation STOP AIDS NOW!, Lucie van Mens and Maria Adriana de Schutter from AIDS Action Europe, and Glenn Thomas from the World Health Organisation.

The number of health workers killed is significantly less than unofficial reports that put the number of conference delegates aboard the flight at 100.


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